Twenty Questions
by poestheblackcat
Summary: Twenty questions that Sam has asked Dean over the years. Birthday challenge for myself--20! Collection of cuteness, angst, hurt, and humor in chronological order. About half of the oneshots are pre-series.
1. First Word

AN: It's 20 days until my 20th birthday. So I'm posting one one-shot a day until then. Or at least I'm gonna try to. Mostly Wee!chesters, some Teen!chesters and the rest during the series. Lots and lots of cuteness, hurt!Dean, protective!Dean, and angsty!Dean, and basically lots of other things that I like and want to indulge in, mostly things to do with Dean. I like Dean. He's funny and hurts pretty.

Summary: Twenty questions that Sam has asked Dean. One for every day until my birthday. Birthday challenge for myself--20!!

Disclaimer: Not mine. Unfortunately. Darn you, Kripke. So, like I was saying, it's almost my birthday…Okay, wishful thinking?

**Twenty Questions**

**One: First Word**

Sam Winchester's first word was a question. Figures, right?

Dean was watching Batman get the bad guy while keeping one eye and an ear on his baby brother.

Sammy lay on a blanket on the motel floor happily sucking on his toes. He caught his big brother watching him. He waved at him and babbled.

Dean plopped onto the floor next to baby Sammy. Sammy hauled himself up and tottered over. "Dee?" He patted Dean's nose with a drool-covered hand. "Dee?"

Dean's mouth dropped open in surprise. He grinned. "Daddy!" he hollered at the closed bathroom door. "Sammy just said his first word!"

John burst out of the bathroom, dripping wet and dressed in hastily donned jeans. Tensed muscles relaxed when he finally grasped what his elder son had said. "Sammy talked?"

He knelt down beside his two boys. "Uh-huh." Dean nodded happily. "Sammy, say it again."

Sammy blew a spit bubble. It popped and dribbled down his chin.

Dean patiently wiped the drool away with the blanket. "Sammy, come on. Say it again for Daddy."

"What did he say?" John asked.

"He said, 'Dee.' " Dean said happily. "I was trying to teach him how to say, 'Daddy' yesterday."

They waited for several more minutes but Sammy wasn't talking.

That night, John heard muffled giggles and Dean's whispers coming from the boys' bed. Then, "Dee!! Dee. Nuuu."

Dean's head popped up from under the covers. Mussed blond hair stuck up in all different directions. "Daddy, did you hear it this time? He said, 'Daddy.' " A big grin split his face.

John went over to sit on the edge of the bed. Sammy blinked up at him curiously. "I dunno. Sounded more like 'Dean' to me, buddy."

Dean's eyes grew round. "You think? Really? He said, 'Dean'?"

"Dee?" Sammy questioned. He didn't look sleepy anymore.

Dean's grin got bigger. "Sammy, didja say my name?"

"Dee!!" Sammy squealed. "Deedeedeedeedeedee!!" His hand hit Dean's chest.

Dean caught the little hand and kissed it. Sammy laughed and yawned. "Sleepy, Sammy?" Dean asked.

"Nuu-nu," little Sammy said. 'No' was Sam's second word. He used it a lot. But he still used 'Dean' more.


	2. Sammy’s Favorite Word and Dean’s Bane

AN: Hehe, since it's technically "tomorrow," I'll just post this before I go to bed. Enjoy the wee!Dean mini-whump and how Sammy pushes big brother's buttons.

**Two: Sammy's Favorite Word and Dean's Bane**

Dean wondered for the hundredth time that week when Dad was going to get home. It was still Wednesday. If he didn't come soon, Dean was going to go nuts.

"Why?" Sammy asked again, petulantly.

'Why' was the three-year-old's new favorite word.

'Deanie, why salt not sweet? Why sugar not salty? Look same. Why not taste same?'

'Why birdie talk? What dey say, Deanie?'

'Deanie, why Daddy go?'

At first, it was cute, but now? Dean said a naughty word—in his head. It wouldn't do to add _that_ one to Sammy's vocabulary.

He sighed. "Sammy. Because."

Sammy pouted and crossed his little arms over his chest. "But why?" he whined.

Dean brushed his hand through his newly cropped hair (short, just like Daddy's). He groaned. "Because I said so. Because I'm older. Okay?!"

Dean instantly felt terrible. Sammy's large eyes filled with tears at the older boy's outburst. His bottom lip trembled.

Dean swept his little brother into his arms. "I'm sorry, buddy. I didn't mean to yell atcha. Okay? I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Sammy nestled his wet face into the crook of Dean's neck. He sniffled and nodded.

Dean rubbed circles on his back and felt guilty for every hitched breath that shook the little body. His fault. "I'm sorry, buddy."

Sammy sniffed again. "Deanie?" he mumbled.

Dean ran his hand through the tangled mop of hair at his chest. He hated trimming Sammy's hair. He remembered Mommy liked the long hair he used to have. That was before the fire. He'd asked Dad for a real haircut because he was a big boy now. He had to be like Dad and take care of Sammy. Because Sammy didn't have a mommy and Dad was always gone.

Great job he was doing of taking care of his little brother he was doing right now, though. He'd made him cry. But it was so hard sometimes. "Yeah, little man?"

"Why?" Sammy queried.

Dean groaned inwardly. "What do you mean, Sammy?" he asked patiently. "Why what?"

Sammy wiped the tears that had somehow made their way onto Dean's cheeks with a dirty little hand wet from his own tears and snot. "Why you sawry? Why you cwy?"

Dean's lips twitched. "Just because, Sammy," he said, holding on tight. "Just 'cause." He sniffed. "And I'm not crying. Crying's for girls and little kids."

Sammy frowned, eyes narrowing as he examined his teary-eyed brother. "But you _awre_ cwying."

Dean tried to smile, as if nothing was the matter. "No, I'm not."

Sammy put his hands on his hips and stamped his little foot. "Yes, you _awre_."

The smile on Dean's face turned into a real one. "No, I'm _not_," he replied mimicking the toddler's tone.

Sammy glared at his lying brother. "_Yes_."

Dean sent a mock-glare back. "_No_."

"Yes."

"No."

"Ye—No, no!! No ticklies," Sammy shrieked delightedly, scrabbling to get away from Dean's wriggling fingers. "No-no!"

" 'No' what?" Dean grinned, relentless.

"No, Deanie not cwying," Sammy squealed out between giggles. "Not a guh-wull."

Dean stopped, satisfied with the answer, and rolled back flat on the carpet. Beside him, Sammy uncurled from the ball he'd been trying to squeeze into to escape the tickling. The boys lay still, panting for breath from their brief exercise.

"Deanie?"

"Mm?"

The three-year-old rolled over on his stomach and blinked impishly down at this brother. He giggled. "Why?"

Dean gazed at the puppy-eyed rascal in disbelief. He threw his arm over his face and groaned whole-heartedly. "Arrrrrgh!! Sammy!"


	3. Daddy the Assternot

AN: Just 'cause y'all love Wee!chesters. So do I. ;P Sorry it's a little bit short.

**Three: Daddy the Ass-ter-not**

"Rise and shine, Sammy! Time to get up." Dean's cheery voice pulled his younger brother from a nice dream about soft blonde hair and chocolate chip cookies.

Sammy sat up and rubbed his eyes. The bed next to the boys' was already made and its former occupant was nowhere to be seen. The five-year-old's eyes narrowed.

"Dean?" he asked as he padded into the kitchen area of the motel room where his brother was currently fixing breakfast. "Where's Daddy?"

Dean's lips tightened momentarily before bending into a smile at the sight of his bleary-eyed little brother. "Mornin', Sammy. Dad's working."

Dean chuckled under his breath at the thoughtful look Sammy affected as he processed that information. Not even under extreme pain would he ever admit that he thought it was adorable. Ever.

"What does he do for work?" Sammy finally queried. "Is he a ass-ter-not?" They'd been learning about space at school in the little kids' class.

" 'Astronaut,' Sammy." Dean corrected, and scraped a small mound of eggs onto Sammy's plate. "And, no, Dad's better. He's a hero."

Sam shoveled a forkful of food into his mouth. "Po-weeceman?"

Dean wrinkled his nose and scoffed. "No way, dude. He's way cooler than any policeman. And don't talk with your mouth full."

Sammy cocked his head as he swallowed. "Then what is he?"

Dean was silent for a moment. "He sells stuff, Sammy," he said reluctantly.

Sammy wrinkled his own button nose. "_That's_ not cool."

Dean rolled his eyes as if saying, 'That shows how much _you_ know about it,' and sat himself next to Sammy. "It is too cool, Sammy. He travels all over the country and meets all sorts of people and…and he saves 'em." A gleam of admiration worked its way into the older boy's eyes.

"Oh," Sammy said. He pursed his lips. If Dean said so, then it must be true. "Okay then."

Dean breathed a little easier at that. Damn it, Dad. At least give him a good story to tell Sammy if he was supposed to lie to him.

"Dean?" Sammy's querulous voice pulled him from his thoughts. "What does he sell?"

Oh crap.


	4. Cloudy, with a Chance of Candy

AN: Wow, I'm surprised at the response this little thing (which I started on a whim) has gotten. Thanks people!

**Four: Cloudy, with a Chance of Candy**

Sammy climbed up onto the bed next to his big brother. Dean glanced at him over the edge of his comic book. Something had been bothering the little guy all day.

"What is it kiddo? Just spit it out already."

Sammy turned adoring hazel eyes to his brother. How did Dean know? But of course, Sammy's big brother knew everything, just like he always said.

"Hey Dean?" he began hesitantly. "Are clouds made out of marsh-melons or cotton balls? And what do they taste like?"

Dean's left brow skyrocketed up. What on earth? "Okay, I don't even want to know why you want to know that." He scoured his brain for that stuff he'd learned a while back about the water cycle. He wished he'd paid more attention in class instead of shooting spitballs at Danny Panzer.

Pursing his lips and scrunching his forehead as he mulled the problem over, Dean looked like the smartest brother in the world to Sammy. Which of course he was. "Uh, let's see. Clouds are made when water from the ground dries up and gets stuck in the sky. So I guess they taste like water," he concluded and shrugged.

Sammy's face fell. Dean hated that. "But know what? I think it would be loads cooler if they were made out of cotton candy. What do you think?" He poked a finger into the pudgy folds of his little brother's belly.

Sammy squirmed and giggled. "Cotton candy?"

Dean smiled. "Yeah, imagine that. Fluffy white cotton candy clouds. Then we could just reach up into the sky and eat 'em."

Sammy copied his big brother's smile. A dimple appeared in his cheek, totally ruining the effect and making him look adorable instead of cool like Dean. "Yeah. But I like marsh-melons better," he announced.

"That so, little buddy?" Dean rolled off the bed. "Whaddaya say I make us some hot chocolate then? I can put extra marshmallows in yours."

"Okay." Sammy bounced on the bed, content. His big brother knew everything.

------------------------------------------

AN: Now come on, where're all the "Awww, so cute" reviews I've grown accustomed to? Just kidding. (No really.)


	5. Mommy

AN: Dean whump, cute Sammy, and a little bit of John.

**Five: Mommy**

The boys were getting ready for bed when John heard Sammy asking his brother a question. That in itself wasn't an odd occurrence. In fact, it was the norm.

But the question itself was what caught John's ear.

"Dean? Why don't we have a mommy?"

Dean stiffened and paused in the middle of pulling Sam's shirt off of him. He glanced his Dad's way. Broken glass-green eyes held the brown gaze until John broke contact and looked down, unable to garner the strength to answer his younger son's query. He felt guilty leaving it to Dean to take care of. He had to admit, though, the nine-year-old manned up to do the job perfectly, as usual.

Dean's voice was soft. "She died, Sammy."

Sammy's voice was muffled under his shirt. "What's 'died'?"

Dean finished undressing Sammy and pulled the pajama top on over the brown mop-topped head before answering. "It means she had to go to heaven."

Sammy let Dean pull his pajama bottoms on before asking, "What's 'heaven,' Dean?"

Dean smiled sadly. "It's where all the angels are."

"Dean? Is Mommy an angel?" Sammy asked next, after Dean had tucked him in.

Dean started undressing himself. "Yep. She's with all the other angels up there and she's watching over us." John remembered that Mary had always insisted on telling Dean that angels were watching over him. Too bad it wasn't true. The world was too damn evil for them to exist, and too much crap had happened to their little family for angels to be caring too much about them.

"I want her here with us, Dean," Sammy said around a yawn.

Dean stilled. "Me too, Sammy." John could see him swallow. "But you have me and Dad here. Isn't that enough?" Thin shoulders tensed as Dean waited for his brother's reply.

Sammy's head flopped to the side. John could see his little face scrutinizing his big brother's carefully. "Yeah, Deanie. You're _always_ here." He sat up and hugged his brother's middle affectionately. "I love you, Dean."

Dean's arm lifted to rest on the small shoulders. The broken expression in his eyes turned to affection, and a sad smile spread across his lips, oblivious to the sudden clenching of his father's heart at the change. It was like a punch in the gut, a hit below the belt. Damn his boys for always having that effect on him. John wiped at his eyes, almost missing Dean's whispered response.

"I love you too, Sammy."

---------------------------------------------------------

AN: *hands out tissues* No?


	6. Balloon Shirts

AN: Just a really silly, awkward one. I personally don't think it's as cute as the rest, but I always kinda wondered how the boys got their sex talks.

**Six: Balloon Shirts**

Sammy held onto Dean's hand tightly, like he was supposed to whenever they went out. His eyes widened into saucers as they landed on the chest of a very well-endowed young woman.

"Dean?" he asked, neck craning to follow her. "What do girls put in their shirts? Why are they all puffy in the front like that? Is it balloons? Won't they fly away?"

Dean choked on his soda. He hacked and thumped his chest for several moments, then wiped his mouth on his arm. "Uh, yeah. Heh." He cleared his throat. "Those are…boobs, Sammy." He was torn between amusement and embarrassment. "Girls have them because…they make guys look at them and grown up guys like them," he said slowly, sure the seven-year-old wouldn't really understand anyway.

"Okay." Sammy was placated for the moment. Dean's brow arched up in surprise at the unexpected acquiescence. He shrugged. He wasn't complaining. Not one bit.

"Dean?" the childish voice asked five steps later.

Dean groaned. Just his luck. He'd bet his new Batman comic that his little brother was going to ask the W-word question. "What is it Sammy?" he asked grimly.

"_Why_ do guys like boobs?" Curious eyes blinked up at Dean, who wiped a hand down his face. And there it was, the omnipresent query: 'Why?'

"God. Why me?" he asked the heavens, trying his own luck at 'why.' "Come on, dude. Gimme a break already."

Sammy tugged on his hand. "Dean," he whined.

Dean stopped walking, sighed in resignation at his predicament, sent a curse thousands of miles up, and turned to his little brother. Christ, the things he does for him. He changed his diapers when he was a baby, fed him, clothed him, read to him, put him to bed…loved him. What's a sex talk after all of that? Simple. Piece of cake. But then again, seven? Too young to know that stuff, right?

He crouched down to Sammy's level and looked the inquisitive boy straight in the eyes. "Sammy. I promise you, you will find out why guys like girls' boobies when you grow up, okay? I swear. Unless you're gay, which I think you might be, but I swear, okay? Just _please_ don't make me explain it now," he begged. He never begged. Not really. Well, he asked,_ desperately_, for Sammy to take his bath and to go to bed and stuff like that, but he never _begged_.

For six heart-stopping seconds, Dean thought Sammy might ask 'why' again, but then the little squirt nodded and said, "Okay, Dean," and Dean could breathe easily again.

"Okay?" he asked cautiously to make sure he was really off the hook.

"Yeah, Dean." Sammy swung their clasped hands back and forth. "Okay. Just tell me later," he said cheerfully, not realizing the gravity of the disgusting situation.

Dean hoped he wouldn't have to do the "birds and the bees" talk with Sammy. The one he'd had with Dad—he shuddered. Guh, nasty, _nasty_ memory. He'd wanted to scrub his brain out after that. Never again was he talking sex with Dad. But then again, he didn't want Sammy to have to go through that agonizing experience with their blushing and awkward father. Dammit! Fine. He'd do it. In like a gazillion years.

A pretty girl walking by caught his eye. Dean instantly flashed a charming smile at her, and she smiled shyly back. Sammy wrinkled his nose in disgust. Girls—eww. Cooties.

-


	7. Food for Thought

AN: Hungry!Dean. I mean, Dean _loves_ his food, right? Fans are always trying to think of why that is, and some people have come up with, "Hey, maybe Dean didn't get enough to eat as a kid. Maybe _that's_ why Sam's so much taller than him." And then there was that "Oh yeah" in "Metamorphosis" when the hunter guy was talking about the rugaru and asked if they'd ever been really really hungry? *shakes head* Some fans. *is a hypocrite* ;D

This one's the longest I've written so far (here).

**Seven: Food for Thought**

If Dad didn't come home soon, Dean was going to have to figure out some way of getting money, because they were almost out of food. He'd been giving his share to Sammy for the past few days, and even then it wasn't enough. His little brother was a growing boy.

To top it all off, Sammy was becoming ever more insistent with his questions.

"When is Dad coming home?"

And ladies and gentlemen, Sammy the Amazing Questioning Wonder strikes again. He'd score big on Jeopardy! someday, the rate he was going.

Dean scraped the last of the Spaghetti-Os from the bottom of the saucepan into a bowl. "He'll be home by tomorrow, Sammy. I told you, he said he'd be home by Friday at the latest. That's tomorrow."

"I know that," Sammy huffed from behind him.

Dean placed the bowl in front of his little brother. "Here, eat up."

Sammy frowned at the reddish-orange concoction. "What about you?"

"I ate a lot at school," Dean lied glibly. His grumbling stomach almost gave him away.

Sam narrowed his eyes at his brother. He knew for a fact that Dean had not packed himself a lunch when he'd gotten the two of them ready for school. Lunch for Sam had been a bologna sandwich and an apple. Dean had taken a bottle of tap water for his.

Dean saw the look. "Sam. Eat it," he ordered.

Sam flinched and picked up his spoon. Dean could do Dad's voice really well when he had a mind to. When he started eating the rapidly cooling red goo, he saw Dean sigh and relax. He felt a pang of guilt for making his brother worry like that when he knew he was already worried about Dad. Where did he go all the time?

Dean was glad Sammy wasn't going to put up a fight tonight. He didn't have it in him to argue. He was too damned tired. Tired and hungry. He took a glass and filled it with water from the tap. Dinner. Delicious.

He wandered over to the window and lifted the curtain. For one fleeting moment, Dean wondered what grass tasted like. It looked kind of green and juicy…Ugh. He really hoped Dad would come back soon. He'd like to not be stark-raving cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs crazy when he died. Mmm, Cocoa Puffs sounded really good right now. Nuts. His stomach grumbled. God, why'd he have to think about food? A hamburger or five would be great.

"I'm done." There was a clatter over in the kitchenette as Sammy noisily put his spoon and bowl on the counter. The eight-year-old rushed by Dean to finish up his homework. Geek.

Dean shuffled to the sink to wash the dishes when he noticed—"Sammy! Come back here and finish your dinner."

"I'm full," Sam called back from his bed. "You eat it."

Tricky little brat. Dean eyed the congealing remains hungrily but managed to pry his eyes away. He covered the bowl and stuck it in the crappy motel refrigerator. His stomach protested. "You can have it for breakfast in the morning then."

Sam made a disgruntled sound into his papers.

The sound of a key in the door made them both turn to look. Dean tensed and silently reached for the shotgun propped up against the wall. As he brought it up to aim, the door opened and a sturdy boot appeared around the edge.

"It's me, boys." Dad. Dean sagged in relief as the rest of John Winchester appeared.

Sammy leapt off the bed and ran for their father. "Dad!" The hug enveloped him in the leather and gun oil scent always hanging around Dad.

A clatter and a dull thud further inside the room captured their attention. The shotgun lay on the ground next to Dean's prone body. He'd finally succumbed to the lack of food.

"Dean!" John rushed to check his older son over for injuries while Sammy fluttered at his shoulder.

"Daddy?" Sammy said worriedly. He hadn't called John 'Daddy' in a while, so that he was doing so now was a troubling sign. "He's not hurt. I think it's because he hasn't eaten in a while."

John took in the ashen tone of Dean's skin stretched tight over the high cheekbones highlighted by hollow cheeks and eye sockets. His once-charming baby fat had long since disappeared. "What? Why not?" He'd heard about eating disorders, but he didn't think either of his boys would ever have a problem like that. That Dean could be starving himself on purpose was absurd. He liked his food too much.

Sam didn't answer, paying more attention to his brother than to his father. "Sammy. Tell me why he hasn't been eating."

Sammy looked ready to cry. "Because," he whispered, "there hasn't _been_ anything to eat. He makes _me_ eat what we do have." His fingers were now tangled in Dean's short hair. "Dean. Wake up." The tears fell on Dean's neck. "Why isn't he waking up?"

John's heart stilled. God. How much money had he left Dean with? He calculated the amount along with how long he'd been gone and groaned. Not nearly enough. He was surprised Dean had even been able to stretch it out this long. He cursed himself for extending his time away from his boys from two weeks ago, when he was supposed to be home, to now. "Dean? Come on, buddy." He slapped Dean's cheek a little in hopes of reviving him. "Wake up."

Dean flinched and wrinkled his brow. "That's it, son. Wake up." The boy whimpered (a sound he'd later deny he ever made) and opened dilated eyes. "That's it. You with us?" Although he wasn't exactly what you'd call a religious man, he thanked God it seemed like it wasn't too serious.

Dean blinked the haze out of his sight. He was on the floor looking up at his dad and teary-eyed little brother. When had his dad gotten home? And why was he on the floor? "Wh—" He made the word that far out of his mouth before being attacked by said little brother. "Umph."

"Dean! I told you to eat it. You wouldna fainted if you had," Sammy gurgled wetly into his neck. "Why didn't you eat it?" He sounded all of five years old again.

Dean's eyes met his father's worried ones. _'Dad? What's going on?' _"What you talkin' about, squirt? Didn't faint. Jus' sleepin'." He patted his sobbing baby brother's back weakly in an attempt to calm him.

John tugged on Sammy to try to make him let go. It was impossible; the boy had clamped onto his brother with a death-grip. "Come on, Sammy. I need to get Dean off the floor and into bed."

Sammy pushed back onto his knees and wiped his face on his sleeve (a habit he'd picked up from his brother). "I'll help."

With grumblings of "Dude, personal space" and "I can walk, you know" from Dean, John carried his son to the bed. His frown drew down deeper at how light the boy felt in his arms. Once Dean was settled on the bed with his brother attached to his side again, John straightened and turned to his younger son, putting him in charge. "I'm goin' out to get something to eat. Try to keep him awake until then, got it, Sammy?"

"Yes, sir," Sam answered promptly. "There's some Spaghetti-Os left over from my dinner. Should I give it to him while you're out?" Worried eyes peered up at John from under long bangs.

John nodded. "Yeah, yeah, do that. Make him eat it all. I'll be back soon." He ran his hand gently though his older boy's hair and patted his younger's shoulder. "Watch your brother, Sammy."

As John left, he and Sam both had the same thought: _'Please God, let Dean be okay.'_

Dean had a much different prayer as he watched his baby brother coming at him with a loaded spoon with the intent of spoon-feeding him: _'Oh God, please tell me I didn't really faint.'_

"Sammy, gimme that. I can feed myself, thank you very much."

----------------------------------


	8. Dean's Job

AN: Yay! My first hurt!Dean of this anthology (VesperRegina kindly informed me that "anthology" is the word that best describes this. Much better than my own suggestions of "thingamabobby" and "my mostly Wee!chester story thingy." XD).

**Eight: Dean's Job**

"Dean, why'd you do that?"

Sam leaned against the doorway looking at his brother, who was sprawled on his bed.

Dean looked…well, he looked like he'd gone ten rounds with a steamroller and lost.

The almost-teen groaned and shifted the ice pack. "Because, Sammy."

Sam walked in and perched himself carefully on the bed, careful not to jostle it. "But why, Dean? Those guys were way bigger than you and there were like, five of them."

" 'Why, why, why,' I swear it's like you're a friggin' three-year-old again," Dean muttered through a split lip. He sighed—and regretted it as soon as he did it when his ribs protested. He let his breath out slowly through his nose.

"Dean?" Sam said, softly this time. "You okay? Do you need anything?"

Dean groaned. "I need you to stop asking so many damned questions all the time, Sammy."

The silence over the next minute was uncomfortable. Dean pried open a rapidly swelling eye to check on his brother.

Sam raised his eyebrows. 'What?' they asked silently.

"You don't have anything to say that's not a question?" Dean finally asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

Sam's hands flopped up and down. "Fine. So at least the other guys look worse than you, I guess."

Dean slapped Sammy's knee with a hand sporting scraped knuckles. "Exactly. Now that's what I'm talking about."

Sam pursed his mouth. Dean watched him warily from under the ice pack. Sammy looked like he was planning something. That was never good. The kid thought too much.

"You know, I'd like to know why you beat up those guys this afternoon, Dean," Sammy _stated_.

"Sammy," Dean said in warning.

"It wasn't a question, Dean. It was a statement." Sam smirked.

Dean closed his eyes. "Yeah? Well, here's another statement: Little brothers are frickin' annoying."

"Then why'd you beat up the guys that were bullying me?" Sam shot back.

Dean would have tightened his lips, had they not been split and swelling up. "That's a question, Sammy," he said wearily. Little brother was getting to be too smart for Dean to keep things from him. Too bad. You didn't know how great innocence was until you lost it.

"Dean, tell me," Sam demanded.

All Dean wanted was some peace and quiet. "Because," he said at last, "you're my little brother and taking care of you is my job. Okay? Happy?"

Sammy was quiet for a moment. Then came softly, "No, I'm not happy with it." A sigh. "Want some more aspirin?"

Dean breathed out carefully. "Yeah, thanks Sammy."

Sam stopped at the doorway. "Sure, Dean. Just let me take care of you for a little while, okay?" He didn't really say it. He wanted to, but he knew how his big brother would react to that.

What he really did say was, "Okay, Dean." Dean could hear what he meant in those two words, though. And that was just fine.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


	9. Protection, Lifetime Guarantee

AN: Spoilers to "A Very Supernatural Christmas." Since the last one had Dean worrying about Sam losing his innocence, this one is after Sam finds out the truth.

**Nine: Protection from Monsters, Lifetime Guarantee**

"_Dean? Are monsters real?"_

Dean could have sworn his heart stopped in his chest when he saw his little brother with their dad's battered old journal. This wasn't how he wanted Sammy to find out. Not like this. The best-case scenario would have been Sammy never finding out about the things that go bump in the night, but the second-best definitely didn't involve him simply reading all about it in their father's handwriting in The Journal.

With a dry mouth, he'd tried to comfort his little brother the best he could, but to no avail. The muffled sobbing in the next bed had faded into the steady breaths of sleep hours ago, but Dean knew the memory of the discovery would still lie heavy in his brother's mind the next morning. The next morning and for the rest of his life.

Dean looked at the clock. 2:48 blinked red in the dark room. It was Christmas and Dad still hadn't come home. Dean had crushed Sam's childish innocence of fairytales and Santa Claus last night, but he couldn't let down his brother's faith in Dad as well.

He sat up in bed. Dad had told him to stay inside after nightfall, but still, this was a special occasion. It wasn't too likely that there'd be anyone scary around at this time of night on Christmas, right? Unless you counted Santa. Dean snickered silently. Imagine, an evil Santa Claus. Right. He'd take the gun anyway, just to be safe.

Dean got dressed as quickly and quietly as he could, so as not to wake Sammy, then slipped outside into the cold night. The snow was frosted over everything and it sparkled in the moonlight like in a picture on the cover of a cheesy Christmas card.

He walked the few blocks to the nice neighborhood they'd passed on the way to their crappy motel and picked a house. Eenie meenie mynie mo. A typical two-story house in the suburbs of Broken Bow, Nebraska. Dean tilted his head to the side and gave it a cursory examination. Should be easy enough to break into, and the Christmas decorations pointed to the family not being Jewish, which meant presents under the tree, there for the taking.

After a quick look around to make sure no one was up to call the cops on him, he slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out the thin scrap of metal he needed to gain entrance into the still house. Warm, heated air set fire to his frozen face and hands as he crept inside on silent feet. An eerie multicolored glow from the lights on the Christmas tree indicated which room he should head to.

Any misgivings he'd had previously about stealing another kid's gift evaporated at the sheer number of boxes piled under the cheerfully-decorated evergreen. He held his breath for another moment to make sure he was the only one awake in the house, then proceeded to examine the packages for the best one for Sammy. Hey, this was actually kind of fun; sort of like shopping, only it was no money out of his pocket, and the adrenaline rush was a plus.

Dean spent a few precious moments deliberating between a thin stick-looking package and one about the size and shape of a shoebox. He took another look at all the presents left under the tree and decided Shawn (the name scribbled lovingly on the easily peeled-off labels) wouldn't find anything amiss if he took more than one for Sam. He was probably a big jerk who made fun of poor kids anyway. Serves the bastard right.

Too bad the "bastard" turned out to be a girl. Lame, right? What kind of parents named their daughter "Shawn"? Wasn't that a guy's name? Poor chick. Heh. It was kind of funny though, giving chick presents to Sammy. Because he was totally a girl. This turn of events just proved it.

Sam knew instantly what he'd done, but he wasn't mad. Not at Dean, anyway. Dad had lied to him, he said, but Dean couldn't help thinking that he'd lied to his brother, too. Maybe not as much as Dad had, but he'd done his fair share.

Then Sam handed over the gift Dean had seen him wrapping earlier for Dad. He accepted it uncertainly, and his hands trembled as he ripped the colorful newspaper apart. A small, cold weight plopped into his hand. It was an ugly little brass thing on a leather cord, but to Dean, it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"It's great," he choked out, eyes misting over inexplicably. "I love it."

As the necklace settled around his neck, the unfamiliar weight feeling cold on his chest, he vowed never to take it off. This was something his Sam had given to him, to him and not Dad, because he trusted him, because he was there. He promised himself then and there to try to live up to that.

They stared at each other for a few silent moments before Sammy finally gave in to his roiling emotions. His lip trembled and he crawled into his brother's ready arms. The jacket rustled and settled warmly around him. "I'm scared, Dean," he whispered. "I'm scared."

Dean shifted them into a more comfortable position on the worn couch and put his cheek on the top of his brother's head. This was what he'd been afraid of: Sammy having to live with the same fear he did, that same fear which had become a constant in Dean's life since the night Mom had died, since Dad had found out the truth. He swallowed. "It's okay to be scared, Sammy." He tried to steady his voice and make it sound as confident as he wished he felt. "But you don't have to be. Not while I'm around."

The smaller boy squirmed around in his brother's arms until he could look into the other's face. "But what if they get you? The monsters?" he asked, sounding very young to Dean's ears. "And Dad, too?" He looked as young as he sounded.

Dean summoned up a cocky smirk. "Who me? Nah," he scoffed. "They don't scare me. And they sure don't scare Dad. I mean, come on. The man's a hero. What have I been telling you all these years?"

One side of Sam's lip quirked up in an almost-smile. "You mean back when I thought he was a salesman? Or you thought that I thought he was a salesman. I figured out when I was like, seven that he's not really what you guys said."

Dean sighed and tipped his head back. "Dammit," he muttered. "I _told_ Dad that it was a lame-ass thing to tell you. But did he believe me? No. 'You can pull it off, Dean,' he said. Yeah right. I'm gonna be in so much trouble." He cringed at the thought. Aw man. He wondered what the punishment would be. Push-ups, sit-ups, laps, weapons cleaning, or all of them. Probably the last.

Sam frowned. "It's not your fault. I'm the one who took that _thing_," he pointed at the brown book sitting on the nightstand with a wrinkle in his nose, "out of his stuff. I'm the one who read it. He's the one who told you to tell me that. It's not _your_ fault." He'd managed to work himself out of the teary stage and straight into the indignant and righteous anger stage.

Dean looked at the glowering visage on his brother and felt a flicker of warmth in his chest. It made him feel a little proud that his little brother was so loyal to him that he felt he had to defend him. It was cute, kind of. He shook his head slowly. "Doesn't work like that, Sam."

He was already anticipating the 'But why?' out of Sam's mouth and headed him off. "Because I'm the big brother and it's my job to take care of you. And if that means that I'm gonna have to take Dad getting all pissed at me for _letting_ you find out, then I'm gonna take it. No buts."

He softened his tone, wanting to take the pout off of Sammy's face. "And as for the monsters, you've got nothing to worry about from that corner as long as I've got your back. Nothing's going to get you."

Sammy looked thoughtful. His eyes flicked up to Dean's through his bangs. "Promise?"

Dean smiled and nodded. "I promise, Sam," he said steadily, confidently. "Lifetime guarantee. No refund, no exchange."

Sam pouted, but his eyes danced with mirth. "Aww, so I'm stuck with you _forever_?" he whined.

Dean laughed, and Sam joined in. "Can't get rid of me that easy, Sammy." He poked the kid's side. "Gonna have to think real hard with that big noggin of yours to do it."

Sam smiled and leaned back in his brother's arms. "Nah. I like it here. Not _here_ here in Nebraska, but here with you."

Dean had to swallow hard for some reason and tightened his arms. "Yeah? Me too. Girl." He cleared his throat to get the residuals of the chick-flick moment out of his system and shifted away from his little brother. "How about we get to bed now. Then in the morning we can eat some of the stuff I lifted from that house."

Sam gave him a look.

Dean blinked. Sammy and his constantly changing emotions would be the death of him someday. "What?"

"You stole food from them, too?" A disbelieving look was clearly etched on Sam's visage. "And you've got to give the girl's presents back, you know that, right?"

Dean groaned. Sammy's weird goody-two-shoes morals. Put that on the list of things that would kill him too. "It was just a pie and some cans. They could spare it, trust me. And fine, I will give the chick-presents back later. Okay? Happy? Can we go to bed now?"

Sam relented after a scrutinizing stare. "Okay." He trudged back to his recently-vacated bed, and got in. He waited until Dean had turned the bedside lamp off and gotten into his own bed to ask, "Can I sleep in your bed?"

Dean answered by turning the covers back and shifting over to make room for another scared little boy.

-


	10. First Hunt

AN: A seriously-hurt!Dean fic. Why is it that I like to hurt him so much? Is there something wrong with me? I'm not really a sadistic person, but when it comes to television, film, and fanfiction characters, I'm all about the gore, sickness, and angst. There _is_ something wrong with me. At least I'm in the same boat as all you other fangirls, huh? I mean, you did get this far in my anthology. ;D

Oh, and for those of you who reviewed yesterday, I'm really tired so I'll reply later today. Just posting this before I go back to bed. Yep, "back"—I actually got out of bed to do this after midnight. Dedication, right? Either that or I'm addicted to reviews, take your pick. Hehe. Anyway, enjoy. Love you all for sticking with me!

**Ten: First Hunt **

It was on Sam's fifth hunt that something went terribly wrong. Someone got hurt. And that someone, surprise surprise, was Dean. He'd gone and jumped in front of Sam, shooting the creature in the heart when the younger boy had frozen in fear. He had gotten a huge, gaping slash across the abdomen for his trouble. The older boy was now bleeding out on the cold, hard ground in the middle of a freaking forest, far away from any kind of help.

At Dean's cry of pain, Sam had leapt into action, bringing up his gun and shooting the sharp-clawed _dead_ thing in the head, finishing what Dean had started. It died without a sound.

Sam dropped onto his knees next to his limp brother. In the moonlight filtering down through the trees, Dean looked pale, too pale. A dark red stain was spreading on the front of his shirt. Sam's trembling hands wouldn't obey him as he tried to lift the soggy shirt up to see how bad the wound was. "Dean?" No answer.

He tried again. "Dean?" He hated the way his voice squeaked. He hated hunting. He hated the way his brother just laid there, still. Too still. Dean was never this still. "Dean!? Wake up. Oh my god, are you dead?" He called for their father. "Dad! Dad!" It came out as a sob.

When Dean moaned and moved his head, Sammy let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Dean? Are you alive?"

"S'mmy?" Dean's eyes opened to slits. "Y' 'kay?"

Sammy breathed a sigh of relief as he applied pressure to the wound. His hands shook and slipped in the dark mess. "Yeah, I'm okay, you idiot. You're the one who got hurt. I thought you were dead," he muttered, voice shaking. Tears flowed unchecked down his cheeks but the nausea that was threatening to choke him subsided slightly.

Dean gasped in pain. "Du'," he panted, face screwed up in agony. "Would I be talkin' if I was dead? An' you're s'posed to be the brains of the fam'ly." His face was even paler than before. "Where's Dad?"

Sammy sniffed. "He's coming." He hoped Dad had heard him. "Hang on, Dean. Please." He shouted for their father again. "Dad!"

Somewhere in Dean's foggy brain, the fear in his little brother's voice registered and brought him back from the spiraling darkness he wanted to fall into. "Don' let me bleed all over th' frickin' upho'stry when we get to th' car. Dad'll kill me," he rasped, hoping he'd be able to hold on that long. Not for himself. For Sammy. He was _not_ going to die in his little brother's arms.

Sammy held on harder. Jesus, his brother was leaking pints of blood from his body and he was still cracking jokes. Trying to make _him_ feel better. "Dad's coming," he whispered. "He'll make everything okay." His voice cracked.

Dean gazed up at his brother, eyelids at half-mast. He muttered something Sammy couldn't quite catch. He leant in. "Dean, what?"

Dean swallowed painfully and tried again. "Girl."

Sammy sobbed out a laugh. "God, Dean, this is serious." He sniffed.

The corner of Dean's mouth twitched in a pale imitation of a smile. "Had worse, 'member?" he gasped. "I'll b'kay."

It was true. Dean had been hurt worse. But seeing his big brother like this, bleeding out miles from help in the middle of the night, was different from seeing him all patched up in a hospital bed. At least there, doctors and nurses could help him. Out here, there was only Sam. And Dad, if he would only get here.

"Dad! Dad! Please. Dean's hurt. Daddy." Tears streamed down the blubbering nine-year-old's face. "Dad."

John charged into the clearing, shotgun at the ready. He saw three figures in the pale moonlight. One was the monster, obviously dead, head blown to smithereens. The two others were his boys, the smaller figure sobbing over the taller one. "Sammy." He rushed to their side. "Dean. God."

Sammy looked up at him with wet eyes and cheeks. "Dad. Dean's—" He was cut off by his father removing his sticky, wet hands and replacing them with his own.

John's face hardened. "Shit," he muttered under his breath. He slipped his arms under his boy's neck and legs and stood. Dean was still small and light enough to carry like this, but he was growing. He soon would be too tall to carry to safety. And that day _would_ come. It had to.

"Sammy, come on," he snapped to his dazed younger son. "We need to get him to the hospital." He charged purposefully away into the forest, towards the car.

Sammy followed Dad, rubbing his wet face and runny nose on his shirt as he ran to keep up. Dad was here now. He'd make Dean better.

The forest thinned out and soon (but not soon enough) they were out on the road. The Impala gleamed comfortingly in the dark. Home. Dean would be safe now. The car would get them to the hospital in time. She always did.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AN: *snores* Oh what? Y'all done reading? Okay, so how about a little review for my trouble, huh? Pleeeaaaase? *goes back to bed*


	11. The Three B's: Birds, Bees, and Bananas

AN: I couldn't get on the site last night, so sorry it's later than usual. I normally post after midnight before I go to bed, but FF. net was all weird.

About this story: The Sex Talk. That's right. Well, actually, more like the Girl Talk. The reviews for the chapter where Sam asked Dean about boobs (Chapter 6) got me thinking. This is the result. Prepare for a collective head-desking.

**Eleven: The Three B's—Birds, Bees, and Bananas**

Sam couldn't concentrate. He really couldn't. English was his favorite subject, but today, even Edgar Allan Poe was looking a little dull. He kept doodling hearts all over his paper when he really should have been taking notes on "The Tell-Tale Heart." He sighed and finally gave in.

"Dean? Are you busy?" he asked his brother, who was currently lounging on one of the beds, watching a movie on the cranky old motel TV.

Dean pried his eyes away from Buffy the sexy vampire slayer. "Mmm?"

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Can I ask you something? Itsaboutagirl." He cringed at how nervous he sounded. Too late to take it back now. Dean was already sitting up with a very interested expression.

"Well, well, well," he chuckled. "Ittle Sammy is now officially a horny teenager."

Sam colored beautifully at the rib. "Shuddup Dean."

Dean grinned wolfishly. "Aw, it's okay. Nothin' to be embarrassed about. At least you asked me and not Dad, right?"

Sam's eyes grew to saucers. Ask Dad? Uh-uh, no way. He hadn't even thought about that. If he had a problem, he always went to Dean first, especially with this kind of thing.

Dean seemed to know what he was thinking because he said, with a smirk on his face, "Who do you think _I _asked? Bobby? Pastor Jim?" He snorted at his own bad joke. "Good thing you asked me, because I've got some stuff I've learned from my own experience that I am totally willing to pass down to my little bro."

Sam grimaced. "Ew, gross. Not like _that_ kind of stuff. It's just…" He sighed. "I wanna ask her out, and I don't know how," he ended helplessly, looking up through his fringe of hair.

Dean looked thoughtful for a moment. "Come here, Sammy," he said, with a serious expression.

"It's Sam," the younger brother said, but still went and sat down on the other bed across from his brother. Maybe he wouldn't tease his ass off about this and actually tell him something useful. Dean was enormously popular with the girls at any place they went to.

"Okay, Sammy," Dean said, completely disregarding Sam's correction. "First things first. Is this about that Melanie chick in your math class?"

Sam froze. How the hell did Dean know that? He looked up at his brother stunned, almost as if he'd been tazered.

Dean smirked. "It's written all over your face, emo boy. Besides, you can't stop talking about her. So it is Melanie, right? She's the cute type," he mused, "so with your puppy-dog looks, it oughta be a piece of cake getting her. All you have to do is give her a soulful look out of that _adorable_ face and she's yours." He shrugged. Simple.

Sam snapped out of his shock and glared at his brother. Soulful? Puppy-dog? "I'm not adorable!" he growled. Well, it was more of a squeak, actually. Stupid puberty.

Dean grinned. He'd gone through his own voice changes and teenage growths gracefully, unlike his still short and squeaking younger brother. "Sure, I mean, it was only yesterday that I heard that freshman, Rachel Whatsername, tell her friend, you know that chubby one, that she thought you were such a tortured artist type. Just adorable!" he mocked, his voice a high falsetto.

Sam stood up and proceeded to march away from his ridiculing brother. Too bad he tripped over one of Dean's outstretched legs. Dean caught him and wrestled him into sitting down again.

"Come on, Sammy. I was just teasing ya. Okay? I just meant, the freshman girls think you're already a great catch, so all you have to do is ask and you will get." Dean leaned over and closed the gap between them. "Between you and me," he said confidentially, "the girls at this school will never know what hit 'em. I'm telling you. Just ask her and see. Read her some of those poems you like to geek out over. Set up a study date or some shit and take her out to dinner and a movie after. Alright? Simple as that."

Sam groaned. "But I _can't_," he grumbled to his dirty sneakers. "I don't think she even likes me. She won't talk to me, or look at me, or anything." He slumped down, dejected. "Besides, I don't even have any money to _take _her out. Even if she did say yes."

Dean chuckled. "Aw, come on, dude. I've got you covered with the expenses. Alright? And as for her not paying any attention to you, she totally is. I mean, in my experience, there are only two reasons a girl would ignore a guy. The first is because she hates you, and the second is because she likes you. And the first one is just denial of the second reason." He clapped a hand on the still-despondent Sam's knee. "Trust me."

Sam shrugged. His hair hung down in his face.

"Sam," Dean shook the knee still under his hand. "Come on. How many girls have I slept with?"

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Too many. You're gonna get an STD someday," he said morosely, determined to bring Dean down with him.

Dean snorted. "So? It still means that I've gotten laid. And that means that my methods are tried and true. And speaking of which," he tagged on thoughtfully, "I still need to give you the 'safe sex' talk."

Sam's head shot up. "Oh no, Dean. Hell no." He backed away from the beds. "I am not going to listen to you talking about sex _voluntarily_. No _freaking_ way."

Dean ignored him. "We've got some bananas in the fridge," he said, as if to himself. "I think it's time for the banana-and-condom demo. Better safe than sorry." He said that with the full knowledge of what effect he was having on his brother.

Sam stood unmoving in the center of the room, a horrified look frozen on his face. He found his voice. "Dean. No. Just…no. _Please_," he begged, strangled.

Dean continued, unaffected. "And then we could eat the bananas for dessert after dinner. You like bananas, right, Sammy?"

"_Dean_," Sam squeaked. "Gross."

The older Winchester grinned at his disgusted younger sibling. "Tell ya what? You promise that you're gonna ask Melanie out tomorrow and we won't have that talk tonight. Deal?"

Sam had a few choice words to say about that, but couldn't find the right one, so he stood there sputtering for a moment. "_Dean_," he whined.

"_Sam_," Dean mimicked back. "Come on, Sammy. This is important. Get the girl or get the talk. One's more traumatizing than the other. Which one's it gonna be?"

Sam sat back down on the bed, defeated. "Fine," he groaned. "Deal. I'll ask her out."

Dean stood up and beamed at him. "Attaboy." He gave the unresisting Sam a noogie. "So how about dinner?" He walked over to the refrigerator. "Bananas for dessert?"

Sam snarled at him. "Dean!"

With a laugh, Dean turned back to the fridge and pulled out a package of frozen beef patties. "Okay, Twinkies, it is then."

- - - - - -

A week later, just before Sam's second date with Melanie, the cute girl from his math class, Dean showed Sam the most horrific demonstration on how to use a condom he had ever seen. (Never mind that it was the only demonstration that he had ever seen. It scarred him for life.)

Dean's puppet show starred the spurned banana (now sporting brown spots), a shiny-packaged condom, and a Dean Winchester impersonation of a nature show narrator, complete with play-by-plays.

Melanie never understood why her adorable date turned up at her doorstep that evening in such a jumpy state, red-faced and twitching.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AN: Poor Sammy. Now we know why he doesn't sleep around as much as Dean does. ;P

By the way, just little tiny detail things, for those detail-oriented people who like noticing itty bitty detail-like details, like the detail that I used the word "detail" six times in this sentence: _Buffy_, the movie the TV show was based off of, came out in 1992. I'm thinking this story is set somewhere around 1996 or '97—Sam's a young teen. _Buffy_ the TV show came out in 1997 according to IMDb, if you're interested in dates and things like that. Dean is watching the movie version in this story.


	12. Cutting Loose

AN: Fast forward a few years. And terrible title, but couldn't think of anything better. This is actually an improvement on the one I had earlier—'Fraternal/Filial Duty.' Can you say, "Aggghagehiodsf!!"? (By the way, that's "Ew!" in my world. Yes, I have my own world. What about it?)

*cough* Anyway, here it is, the "Sam leaves for Stanford" fic that every SPN author seems to inevitably do at some point in their career.

**Twelve: Cutting Loose**

They were at the bus station. Dean had played chauffeur for his brother as the last thing he could do for Sam before he went off on his own as an independent college student unhampered by the hunting life.

Dean unshouldered Sam's beaten-up duffel and reluctantly handed it over. He didn't trust his voice to not betray him, so he said nothing.

Sam seemed to be in the same quandary, until he suddenly burst out, "Why can't you come with me, Dean? Away from Dad, away from this messed-up, crazy life?" Sam looked earnest, big paws waving in the air, trying to express his anger and his general our-lives-are-so-not-fair feelings.

Dean winced. "Sammy."

He'd hoped they wouldn't spend their last moments together in an argument like this would definitely turn out to be. It was bad enough that Sam had left Dad with "Fine!" and a slammed motel door, but he really didn't want Sam to get on that bus mad at him too.

Still, Sam demanded, "Dean, why?" and Dean couldn't help but answer. Call it a bad habit.

"Because," he said reluctantly, "I belong here. With Dad. You…I can't go with you. Dad'll get himself killed if I leave too." He swallowed and looked up into his beanpole little brother's eyes, willing him to understand. Can't have your cake and eat it too. "You know that."

Sam's eyes blazed green with anger. "Then let him!" He couldn't care less about that selfish and controlling drill sergeant of a father. He didn't even deserve to be called a father. He was never around enough to be called that. Too busy with his _job_ hunting down monsters, helping other people not his family.

Dean got a hurt expression on his face. "You don't mean that Sammy."

Sam's lips were in a tight line. "Well maybe I do."

"No, you don't, Sam. I know you better than anyone else. You don't mean it." Green eyes held the now more blue-than-green eyes in a steady gaze, reproving.

Sam's bottom lip started to quiver, push out. He sniffed and deflated. "Dean…" he started. He didn't end what he wanted to say, didn't even know what he wanted to say himself, but his brother knew what he meant anyway. Dean was right; he did know Sam better than anyone else on this planet, Sam himself included.

Dean grabbed the back of his neck and pulled the big-brained noggin down to his level. "Hey," he said roughly. "I…" He had to swallow a lump the size of an elephant in this throat before he could continue. "Just take care of yourself, dude." He ruffled the back of Sammy's hair and let go.

It was the closest the Winchesters ever got to 'I love you.'

Sam clapped a hand on Dean's chest, holding onto the brown leather as if it were a lifeline. "You too, Dean." He tried to smile at him, but it was more of a grimace than a grin. Sam's pain was reflected back to him in his brother's face.

"And here. Take this," said the older boy (no, not a boy, a man now). He dug in the pocket of his jacket. Sam watched the long eyelashes descend, hiding whatever emotions he knew would be lurking at the surface of the expressive green eyes. Dean could school his expressions and his body language like the best of them, but his eyes had a life of their own.

"It's not much, but it's all I can give you." Dean held out a wad of cash. Sam saw a few fifties and at least two hundred dollar bills in there.

For a brief moment, he considered refusing it and insisting on earning his own way to normalcy, but the little brother part of him knew that to do so would break Dean worse than any words ever could. He didn't want to hurt Dean any more than he already was by leaving.

He closed his hand over his brother's. "I…" He shook his head through a huge sniff. His hair swung in his eyes. "No it's not, Dean." He used his superior height to pull the unresisting man into a tight hug and buried his face unabashed into Dean's shoulder. "Thanks bro." He really needed that hug.

Dean held on longer than was considered manly, but he didn't want to let go. He'd raised the headstrong teen from a little baby not old enough to remember home-baked cookies and "Goodnight, love," and he really just wanted to hog-tie the kid and drag him back home.

Finally pulling apart, Dean dragged a hand over his face. Not wet. Yet. He'd save the tears for when he was in the close seclusion of his car. "I'm proud of you, Sammy." He smiled a real smile for his brother.

Sammy, for the young Winchester was more like a boy at the moment than a man, twitched and looked hopeful. A small flame of happiness flickered in his stomach. "Really, Dean?"

Dean nodded at him. "Yeah, Sammy." And he was. He was prouder than anything that his baby brother had made it into a prestigious school and had snagged a full ride there too, all on his own steam. "For real. I mean it."

An announcement over the PA system pierced the air and made the brothers tense. Sam glanced at his bus. Most of its passengers had already found their seats. He didn't want to miss it. "I gotta go," he said, sharing one last lingering look with his brother. "I-I'll call you." With that, he took his first step forward into his new life without a backward glance.

Dean watched the Greyhound pull away, taking all the good parts of his life with it. "No you won't," he whispered into the wind.

Sammy was much too stubborn to look back at his sordid past. Not even if Dean was a part of it, or maybe because of it. Sam wouldn't want to remember what he was missing. It might pull him back into the life he hated if he risked a peek into the past.

Maybe he'd helped shape his brother to be this way, but Dean knew deep in his gut that Sam wouldn't call.

He was right. He was always right in all things Sammy.


	13. Hair like the Sun Burning in My Dreams

AN: One thing before I start getting on topic and stuff: Wheee! I'm over 90 reviews! That's more than any one of my stories has ever gotten. I'm so excited. I wonder if I'll get over 100 with this chapter…(hint hint) *cough*

Okay, I lied. Another thing: **suz mc** asked in her review (I PM-ed her back but thought I'd make this "public" just in case anyone else was stuck and frustrated) how I'm managing to post new chapters even though there's something wrong with the site right now that's preventing a lot of people from uploading their files. My solution: Just paste your new story directly into the "Edit" part of one of your old already uploaded documents saved in the Document Manager. It should work the same after. Of course, it might get confusing after a while because you can't change the document title—the contents of "How To Kill A Demon In Ten Seconds ch1" in your Document Manager may actually be something completely different like "The Cutest Wee!chester Story Ever ch3." You can fix that when you go and post that chapter for real though. Hey, this method works for me so I thought I'd share my cleverness. May good karma rain down upon me in the form of reviews…

Hehe, all right. Moving on.

About this story: It takes place right after the pilot, which is another of the stories that most everyone seems to do sooner or later. Mine kind of explains how Dean was able to just barge into the room in time to rescue Sam, because the episode didn't elaborate and I didn't really like the deleted scenes' explanation. Okay, theirs' works, but it's not canon if it wasn't in the actual episode, right? So I'm off the hook for making something up?

Ummm, it's really really angsty, and seems to have more Dean's POV in it than Sam's. Blame my inner Dean-girl. Sorry about the angst overload, but there's a hug, and secrets!!—come on! (totally not bribing you, hehe)

**Thirteen: Hair like the Sun Burning in My Dreams**

After he'd slammed the lid of the trunk down and climbed stiffly into the passenger seat of the Impala, Sam had been oddly quiet. It was understandable, of course, since he'd just witnessed the love of his life burning up to a crisp right above him. Dean still glanced at him every few seconds, worried about the state of shock his brother seemed to be in.

The ride to the motel wasn't a long one, but it was still quite a way from the school. There were high-end hotels near Stanford to accommodate the rich parents of the mostly privileged students who attended the university when they came by for visits, but they weren't the Winchesters' sort of places. The Winchesters bunked down in shady motels which were often rat-infested, never cleaned, and were nothing like Sam and Jess' cozy little apartment.

Their apartment was where Sam had discovered that homemade chocolate-chip cookies were a million times better than the store-bought kind. It was where he had danced like a drunken fool with a nimble-footed Jess, who to him looked like the very personification of sunshine and summer. The apartment was where he had learned to love another so much that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. It was that very same apartment which was slowly getting smaller in the Impala's rearview mirror, trailing thick black smoke up to the heavens, taking the spark of his Jessica's life with it.

Sam and Dean drove in silence, the older brother respecting the younger's need to not talk, and Sam lost in his thoughts and memories, until he suddenly broke the stillness. "Dean?" he whispered through cracked lips. His voice was hoarse, rough with the effects of smoke inhalation and from yelling and screaming in vain for his lost love. It shook, and he was afraid he'd never get it steady again. "Was it real? Was she really on the ceiling? Like Mom?"

Dean looked sideways at his soot-covered baby brother, pleading to him with wet eyes to tell him that it was all just a bad dream and to go back to sleep. He felt the look wrench something loose in his heart. He just hoped it wasn't something he needed. "Sammy." _'God, I'm so sorry, Sammy.'_

"Dean," Sam begged, nostrils flaring with his inner pain. "Please. Just tell me that I'm not crazy." Tears fell and cut jagged lines down the traces of the fire on his blackened cheeks. "Tell me I that what I saw…" He trailed off, his choking throat rendering him unable to finish.

Dean took a deep breath through his still-smoke-congested nose and cleared his throat. "Yeah." He licked his dry lips before continuing, "Jess was really on the ceiling. Like…like Mom." He swallowed the taste of ash down and grimaced.

It seemed like fire followed him around everywhere he went. First Mom, then the graveyard burnings that came with the job, then this. Jessica, the beautiful, lively blonde he had met just a couple of days before. He'd burst into the room in time to see her burning high up on the ceiling, her horrified face more like Mom's _that_ night than Dean cared to remember. Four years old and the image had been seared into his young brain. Now at twenty-six, the ghastly picture was all but indelible.

"She had a cut across her stomach." Sam's voice resumed, dead, flat.

"Yeah," Dean agreed gruffly, wanting to close his eyes, but knowing that the burning figure would follow him into the dark. So he kept his eyes open and steady on the road.

_Cut open and set on fire, just like Mom._

Her piercing scream had awakened the young boy and pulled him out of bed with a sense of foreboding deep in his gut. He'd run on quick little feet to baby Sammy's room, from which he'd instinctively known the cry had come. He'd seen Dad frozen in horror, and following his gaze, Dean had seen…That was the last time he saw his mother.

_But tonight's death hadn't been _just_ like Mom's._

Jess had been wearing a white night slip, soiled by the same red gash across the middle, and she was on fire, yellow hair spread out like wings, a burning angel. But Mom had screamed. There hadn't been a sound from Jess. No whimper to alert Sam. No scream to bring Dean flying up. Just silence, then the sudden -_whoomp_- of the body catching fire.

"I couldn't get to her. I should've—" Sam's sudden wet sob dragged Dean from his thoughts. "Dean," he cried brokenly. "You should have left me there." His voice cracked and went high, reminiscent of his puberty days. "It's my fault." He keened and huddled against the cold plastic of the Impala's interior, rocking himself. "It's all my fault. I could've saved her."

Dean dragged a hand over his face and was surprised to feel wetness touch his fingers. Tearing up was to be expected, though. He'd just run out of a burning building; the smoke must have irritated his eyes and sinuses.

He held the hand out towards his brother, feeling for the slender shoulder in the dark. "Sammy, it wasn't your fault. Okay?"

_'It was mine. I shouldn't have been so stubborn. I should have started up those stairs to beg you to come with me again to look for Dad earlier. I could have gotten there sooner. I'm always too late. Too late to get to Mom, too late to save Jess. Got what I want now, but not the way I wanted it.' _

Dean shook his guilty thoughts away. They'd have to wait a while until he could get his baby brother calmed down. Then he'd let 'em bombard him with guilt till the cows came home. "Don't think for a second that I woulda left you there Sammy," he said firmly. He'd carried Sammy out of the burning house during the first fire, and there was no way he would have left him to burn this time. Not an option. He'd been too late to save Mom and Jess, but he would never be too late to save Sammy. "Okay, Sam?" Ever.

Sam either didn't hear him or didn't care as he curled into a tight ball, hunched over in pain and sobbing. "Dean, hurts." The big brother in Dean heard the childlike, _"Make it go away, Dean."_

He glanced at the street sign. Still a couple more blocks to go. "Sammy." Dean moved his hand from his brother's shoulder to the back of the kid's shaking neck, sticky and cold from the sweat of fear. "Just hold on," he whispered, hoping to soothe. "We're almost there."

Sammy shook his head. His dark hair swung in his face and the movement let loose a new waft of the scent of fire into the air. "Motel's not home," he whimpered wetly, "Just wanna go home." It ended in a small wail.

He just wanted to go back home; back to the apartment, to Jess, to his life away from the dark scary things that killed beautiful unsuspecting girls who loved to laugh. "Wanna go home." _'Home's gone, Sam. You don't have a home,' _a gruff voice sounded in his head, causing him to emit a strangled sob-laugh._ 'Get your shit together and act like a man.'_ Good ol' Dad.

Dean didn't know what to say to that. He didn't know how to make it all better, and it rankled his pride. He pulled over and parked in a no-stopping zone, even though the motel sign was looming up in front of them at the corner of the next street.

"Hey, Sammy," he said, gripping his mourning brother's shoulders tight and putting his arms around to comfort in the only way he knew how, the big brother way. "I'm here. I'm here for ya. Okay dude?" He clasped the tense neck in one hand and rubbed circles in the still-narrow back with the other, just like he used to do when Sammy was still a little kid. "Shhh. It's okay."

Sam clutched desperately at the leather jacket that was once Dad's. "Dean." He sniffed and sighed, finally able to relax a little. He was folded into strong familiar arms and suddenly felt a lot safer. He was home.

Dean was home. Anywhere his big brother was, he was at home. It just took four years, a college education, and a tragedy for him to realize that.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AN: I just realized that I used waaay too much imagery and flowery adjectives in this one. And neither of the brothers is portrayed in a super-good/cute way. My apologies. Hope it's not too corny. :P


	14. Left Behind

AN: A little bit lighter than the past couple. Thanks for reading and reviewing! I made it past 100!! The contents of the reviews were wonderful as well. If I had Castiel's power of shattering glass with my voice, there wouldn't be a window or mirror left intact for 10 miles around after my squee. Thank you!! Love and hugs all around!

This story: Why do I insist on trying to think up titles for these things? Argh. I tried to refer to something in the story, but it's not _really_ working…Okay, it sucks. Just read the story. I'll try to think of a better title when it's not 3 in the morning. By the way, it's based on a book—ya know the one that was in the _Simpsons_ episode about the Rapture. Doesn't really matter if you don't know what I'm talking about, since it's just the title. And I'm rambling. Gotta learn how to use that "delete" button.

Enjoy!

**Fourteen: Left Behind**

Sam sighed. It was one of those gusty, full-bellied, semi-voiced, heavily-breathed huffs that meant that the youngest Winchester had something on his mind. That usually spelled trouble with a D-A-double-M-I-T for his big brother.

"Dean? You think Dad's alive?"

And there it was. The question. Sammy hadn't changed a whole lot since going off to college. The brooding expression, The Sigh (totally trademarked), and then the inevitable question. Sometimes it took minutes, other times it was days or weeks, but the order was always the same. Brood, Sigh, Ask. Repeat.

Dean heaved a sigh of his own and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Sam, I do," he said decisively. "I know he's alive. I can feel it." He licked his suddenly dry lower lip. "He's gotta be. I'd know it if he wasn't." Same way he'd know it if Sammy was in trouble, or if something was off about a case. He just knew things like that.

Sam snorted incredulously. "Sounds like a river to me."

Dean took his eyes off the road and squinted at his suddenly cryptic brother. "Huh? The hell you talkin' about?"

"Denial?" Sam said with a smirk. "The Nile River? In Egypt? Never mind." He turned his gaze back to the window to admire the bleak scenery. Tree, tree, mile marker, tree, tree.

Dean stared down the same black pavement they'd been speeding down since that morning with his mouth pressed in a grim line. "Dad's not dead, Sammy." End of topic.

Sam sighed again, this time in frustration that Dean knew could turn to anger at the drop of a hat. He'd seen it happen so many times it made him sick to think about it in the months before Sam and Dad had had their last big blowup and the younger (but not any less stubborn) Winchester had stormed out.

"Then why doesn't he want us to know where he is?" Sam grumbled. "I mean, he left you alone and he must have known that you'd be worried as hell, so what's up with that?"

Sam knew he'd hit a nerve as soon as he said, "He left you." The "alone" just made things worse. Dean paled a shade or two (or maybe that was just the shifting of the clouds in the sky outside) and his hands gripped the steering wheel tighter (it wasn't a trick of the light). Sam knew Dean had issues—after spending over half of his life trying to ape his big brother, he thought he knew just about everything about him, including what made him tick and what scared the shit out of him. Family topped the first list and abandonment was perhaps the only thing in the second.

"Sorry," he backtracked. "I meant…" he sighed and rubbed his face. "I just want him to be okay. I want to be with him when he gets to whatever killed Mom and Jess." He bit his lip and watched Dean school himself into his full-body normalcy mask again. Dammit. He'd have to walk on eggshells around Dean for a couple of days now. Dean hadn't changed much. He still hated showing his emotions around anyone, even his brother. Especially him.

"And you don't think I do too?" Dean asked stiffly. "I told you Sam. He's alive. Okay?" '_Denial's not just a river in Egypt,'_ he heard the voice that sounded annoyingly like Sammy sing-song in his head."He's alive," he repeated, more to himself than to his brother. "I know the man and he's not dead."

Dad had to be alive. He just wanted them out of the picture so…well, their father probably had a good reason for keeping them in the dark like this. He always did operate on a need-to-know system. Nothing had changed since Sam left. And nothing had changed since Sam came back either, except for maybe the small budding hope that Sam might actually be back for good.

Sam looked for a minute at his grim-faced brother, really looked. He saw for the first time the lines around the guarded hazel-green eyes that weren't there when he left four years before. He thought that they must be more from worry than from laughter because, hey, what the hell did Dean really have to laugh about? His kid brother, whom he cared for more than he did for his car (which was saying something) had abandoned him for a brighter future that didn't include him, and his father, whom he'd idolized his whole life, had just up and vanished on him one day. No, Dean didn't have anything to laugh about, and Sam felt a little guilty for his part in it.

"Yeah," he said softly. "And we'll find him. It's two Winchesters against one, right? He just taught us too damn well to hide from us forever."

Dean snorted softly. "Yeah." He glanced sideways at the earnest-looking boy in the passenger seat. "We'll find him." _'Not if he doesn't want to be found, but let's not burn Sammy's hope down like that, huh?' _"Just follow the yellow brick road of coordinates to meet the Wizard and help him gank the Wicked Witch of the West."

Sam smiled at the quip. Dean always had liked that movie. "And then go back home to Kansas after? There's no place like home," he grinned. "Isn't that right, Dorothy?"

"No place like Kansas," Dean agreed. Not that he ever wanted to go back _home _to Kansas, because that was where this whole ugly nightmare of a brick road started. With a tornado in the guise of a house fire. "And don't call me that. You're the one with hair long enough to braid. I'm the Tin Man."

"Right," Sam scoffed. "You're the Tin Man." He rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath. "That totally explains the rust bucket."

Dean glared at his sacrilegious brother. "What'd you call my baby?" he growled. "Get outta the car."

Sam noticed that he didn't stop or slow down despite his words. It was only the playful joking they started when things got dull during long drives. "No way, dude," he said as obnoxiously as he could. "I'm not leaving. You can't make me." He reverted to the childish challenge.

"Oh yeah?" Dean cocked his right eyebrow, as if stepping up to take the dare. But Sam saw the small pause, and the sudden hyper-awareness of where this was taking them. Tread lightly, Sam.

"Yeah," he replied cockily. _'I dare you to make me leave.'_ "I'm not budging."

Dean pursed his lips and nodded. "Okay. Good." That was good. Sammy wasn't leaving anytime soon. The small bubble of hope nestled deep in his chest bloomed a little bigger. "Last warning though, dude. Trash my baby again and out you go."

Sam grinned cheekily but kept his mouth closed. _'Yeah right Dean. You're the only one of us who's never left. You hate change, so I doubt you're gonna start now.'_ "Ya mean like how it guzzles more gas than a semi?" So much for not baiting his brother.

Dean smirked. He missed this joking around business. Drives were pretty dull without someone to tease. Good times. "Do you really want to hitchhike to Nowheresville that badly? Be my guest."

"Nah," Sam said, shifting around to a really comfortable spot on the seat. " 'M too comfortable. Too much work to move. Think I'll take a nap. Wake me up when it's my turn to drive." He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep with exaggerated snores.

Dean chuckled at his little brother's antics. Yeah, he sure did miss him. It was good to have him back. "Will do, ya lazy bum."

Sam's bogus snores grew louder, drowning out the Zeppelin.

"You keep that up, I'll stick a sock in your mouth," Dean said over the ruckus. "A dirty one."

Sam's mouth snapped closed and a hazel eye peered out from beneath an eyelid. It glared at the amused brother in the driver's seat. "Dick." Sam would have to sleep with one eye open. Literally.


	15. God That's Good

AN: Eh. Really short. I was tired. Sorry. But it's light brotherly fun today. Have a laugh. Notice the _Sweeny Todd _references. Hey, it's _Supernatural_ so it's gotta have something dark in it somewhere.

**Fifteen: God That's Good**

Sam watched his brother with an expression that was a mix between disgust and fascination.

Red goo oozed out between Dean's fingers and mixed with the pale off-white paste trailing down from the limp, used-to-be-green vegetable matter hanging out of the _thing_ he was currently stuffing in his mouth. Thick grease drip-drip-plopped onto the not-too-clean plate in front of him.

"Dean," Sam finally said. His stomach churned. "How can you even eat that?"

Dean grinned at him between chews of Mrs. Lovett's Scrumdiddlylicious Cheeseburger Special. " 'S goo'," he managed through his mouthful, spitting out slobbery chunks of meat and hamburger bun at Sam as he spoke. "Wan' sum?" He offered his half-eaten burger to his grimacing little brother.

Sam blinked. "You're disgusting."

Dean swallowed and chuckled. "I try." He dived in for another bite of greasy goodness. Heaven. He rolled his eyes in ecstasy. "Mmm." God. So _good_. Almost as good as sex.

"Hey Sammy. Look." Dean opened his mouth wide and let Sammy see all the gooey chewed up food within. A piece of onion hung from his front teeth, dripping saliva.

Sam rolled his eyes and calmly continued eating his Cobb salad. Now _that, _he's seen before. Countless times.

"So Dean," he said conversationally. "We're passing through Peoria in a couple hours. I think there's an abura-sumashi there. What do you say we stop by?"

Dean choked and turned red. He thumped his chest to ease the passage of the hastily-swallowed food. After he recovered and wiped his mouth with his crumpled napkin, he sputtered angrily, "An oil-stealing spirit? No way. I'm not lettin' my baby anywhere near one of those things. You know what could happen to the transmission if…What the hell are you laughin' at, you little punk?"


	16. Knowing Me, Knowing You

AN: Takes place a few hours after Dean hits his car in ELAC. And yes, I am aware that the title is an ABBA song and Dean would probably consider ABBA to be totally, utterly gay, but it fits. *whines* Doesn't it? Besides, _I_ like ABBA. So there.

**Sixteen: Knowing Me, Knowing You**

Sam walked out into the automobile graveyard and sighed at the scene in front of him. Dean was working on his beloved Impala like Dr. Frankenstein slaving over his masterpiece to reanimate it. Sweat dripped down his face and soaked his grey shirt.

Sam noticed that instead of looking more complete than it had after the collision, the black muscle car actually looked worse, as if someone had taken a hatchet to it. He sighed. Dammit, Dean. His brother wasn't too good at voicing his emotions; his actions spoke more about what he was feeling than his words did.

Sam ambled over to the car and leaned up against the side, deciding to play the oblivious card. "Dean?" He tapped the warm metal. "You gonna come in?"

Dean straightened up from his position leaned over the engine, or what Sam thought was the engine. It looked like something that could be called an 'engine.' Spiky, sweat-darkened hair stuck up in all directions from Dean's head. He wiped his face on his arm. "In a minute," he replied. His voice was tired, drained. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at his work, and _not_ meeting Sam's eyes.

Sam didn't move. "Food's getting cold," he said amiably, extending the olive branch. They weren't really fighting, but they had both needed to vent. And they did, each in his own way. Sam talked, and Dean…beat the crap out of his car.

Dean shrugged and sniffed. "I'll heat it up later." Gruff as a bulldog, and just as stubborn.

Sam dug his heels in. "It won't taste as good." Stubbornness runs in families.

Dean finally looked up at his brother and sighed. "Whaddaya want, Sammy?" He threw his grease-blackened hands up. "What the hell do you want from me?"

Sam's brows descended. "You know what I want." He sighed and his eyebrows flipped the other way, arching up toward the middle of his forehead instead of down. "I want you to tell me what you're feeling."

Dean opened his mouth to speak but Sam cut him off with an quick hand gesture. "But I know you're not going to. So just come in and have dinner with me. Please?" Pleading eyes somehow managed to gaze _up_ at Dean through the long brown bangs. Only Sammy could manage that from his height of ten feet taller than Dean.

Dean bowed his head down and closed his eyes. He didn't really want to be with anybody right then. He wanted to be alone, mourn in peace, work his anger out by himself. He didn't want Sammy seeing…He just didn't want him to see that he wasn't a hundred percent badass at the moment.

Sam saw the hard swallow and the pained sigh. "We don't have to talk," he said gently. "I just miss doing stuff with you. You're always out here these days. I'm not asking much; just a meal with my brother. Could we maybe do that?" He hadn't meant for his voice to break in the middle there, but it did, he couldn't help it. Tears sprang unbidden to his eyes. _'God, I'm such a girl.'_

Dean's eyes snapped to his brother when he choked on his words. Sammy just wanted his big brother again. But Dean just wasn't…he wasn't good enough for that, especially after what Dad…God, Dad. That was a crappy thing to do, laying that kind of shit on your kid...oh yeah, the one who almost died, that one. But Sam didn't know that. Dammit. _'Sammy needs me. Don't know why he'd need _me_, but he does.' _He took a shaky breath and ran his hand over his face. _'I gotta…I gotta do something about that,'_ he thought, so he said softly, "Okay."

Sam had to blink fast to quell the tears starting to pool in his eyes. "Okay?" he whispered, sounding more like a little boy than he would have liked if he'd cared. Was this…Did Dean really…Was he coming back?

Dean looked around at all the dead cars surrounding them. He sighed again. He could do this. He could make Sammy better, even if he himself was broken. It wasn't too different from normal anyway; he'd always been broken ever since Mom died. What's the difference? He could fix Sammy. That was one thing he was good at.

He sniffed again. "Yeah, okay. If you're so damn lonely. I'd get a hot girl, but hey, to each his own," he said, the muscle in his cheek jerking the corner of his lip up a little. Dean paused a moment, then cleared his throat and asked hesitantly, "So what are we having?" He started wiping the dirt off of his hands with an oily rag.

Sam stared at his brother. This was more like the Dean he knew and less like the grim stranger who'd been wearing Dean's face for the past couple weeks and banged up the Impala. "Burgers," he replied with a twitch of his lip. "What else? Bobby doesn't know how to cook anything else, remember?" He smiled, the first one since Dad di—had his heart attack.

Dean smiled too. It wasn't as bright or as full-hearted as usual, but it was still the real deal. "Right." He chuckled and shot an amused look at Sam. "How could I forget the Thanksgiving turkey fiasco of '89?"

With a quick grin at each other, the boys made their way to the house, side by side, unaware of the grizzled figure watching them from behind a dusty curtain. Bobby lifted his ever-present hat and wiped off the perspiration beading on his forehead. "Finally," he muttered. "Goddamned, bullheaded Winchester idjits. Gonna be the death of me."


	17. Unspoiled Fruit

AN: Right after "The Kids Are Alright." Um, back to depressing again.

**Seventeen: Unspoiled Fruit**

Fifty miles from Cicero, Sam looked over at Dean and spilled the question that had been fermenting in his head for the past five hours, ever since he had seen that boy. "Dean? You ever want kids?"

The query snapped Dean out of his driving headspace. "What?" His eyebrows arched way up on his forehead. Random.

Actually, not really, since he himself had been mulling over the same thought. But there was no way Sam could have known that, unless his psychic powers were still working and he'd developed new ones of being able to read peoples' minds, in which case he wanted Sam out of his head that very minute. He'd experienced enough poking around in his head by Missouri to know that he did not want anyone rooting around in there. Some things a man just wanted to keep to himself.

Sam shrugged. "You know, kids," he repeated. "Children, babies, offspring, progeny, fruit of your loins…"

Dean puckered his brow. "Gross. And I know what a kid is, you moron." He sent a killer glare over at his brother.

Sam ignored the jibe and the death ray. "So you ever want any?" he asked again.

Damn, little brother could be one persistent guy when he wanted to be. Dean tilted his head, seeming to ponder the question. "With the way we live? Naw. Not really."

Sam looked like he didn't believe his brother's answer. "Yeah?" _'I saw the way you looked at that boy, Ben.' _

Dean nodded. "Yeah." He turned the music up. AC/DC—one of his old favorites. Ben liked them too. "_Highway to Hell,_" he sang, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "_I'm on the Highway to Hell._"

"I think you'd be a good dad," Sam said, interrupting Dean's drum solo. He hated this song.

Dean stopped thumping the wheel and shot Sam an alarmed look. "What? You're kidding, right? I'd be the most deadbeat dad ever in the history of America. On the road all the time, never home. No way."

Childhood memories filled Sam's mind: Dean pouring him milk, Dean making sure he had enough to eat, Dean walking him to school, Dean tucking him into bed and singing him to sleep…"You raised me." A small smile spread across Sam's face.

Dean saw the soft expression on his brother's face and sighed. He knew they were bordering on chick-flick territory now. He wanted out. A wisecrack usually provided a simple exit route, so he quipped, "And look how that turned out."

When the joke didn't do much aside from making Sam narrow his eyes at him, Dean continued, "No Sam. Even if I did, I can't." He shook his head. "Not now anyway," he finished quietly, not wanting to remind his brother of his rapidly ticking clock.

Sam remembered on his own without Dean's help. "But if we break the deal…" he began earnestly, but was interrupted by a low growl from Dean.

"We're not breaking the deal," Dean said sternly and took his eyes off of the road to give his brother a long look. "Okay?" Dammit, not this argument again.

Sam pushed on, relentless. "But if there was no deal, then wouldn't you want a kid? Someday?" He'd never noticed until he started traveling on the road with him, but Dean was great with kids. It wouldn't be strange at all if he wanted one; in fact, it would be stranger if he didn't, with how he relaxed and let down his walls around them.

Dean sighed. "Need to stop hunting for that to happen." A look flashed in his eyes, gone too soon for Sam to interpret. "And I just can't do that." Lips, pressed tight, sealed his decision. End of story. Stop talking, Sam.

Sam sat up straighter, a little angry now. "Why not? It's not your responsibility to save the world." But Dean thought so, with that damn martyr complex of his. Everyone else's happiness before his.

Dean made his rebuttal, a serious look on his face. "But I can help make it safer. Besides, I don't know anything other than hunting. It's too big a part of my life for me to just quit." Once you start on this road, you can't go back, no matter how much you want to. It's too late; you _know_, and you've seen too much to be comfortable living in a world ignorant of the dangers lurking in the shadows.

"But you do want kids." Sam didn't bother asking. He just stated it. He wasn't altogether an unnoticing guy when it came to his brother. He saw things. Maybe he didn't say anything at the time, but he saw. Dean wanted normal, just like Sam did. It was just that his idea of "normal" was a little bit different from Sam's. Family, Dean simply wanted family.

Dean rolled his eyes in exasperation. What the hell was up with his brother? "God, Sam. What's with the questions, huh? Why are you so stuck on me having kids?" He turned to Sam. "Do you want kids?"

Sam frowned. "Don't turn this on me. I just wanted to know. That's all." He shrugged. Really. He just wanted to know for sure.

Dean blinked. "Why?" What would put that thought into Sam's head? Was it because they'd just come off of a case with kids? Or was it because he suspected—

"Because Ben Braeden looks an awful lot like you," Sam said with certainty. "Acts like you too," he added, prompting Dean to tell him if Ben was indeed his newfound nephew.

Hard green eyes glared at the road, not meeting Sam's. A muscle ticked in Dean's jaw. That was a sure sign that Dean was hiding something. Sometimes Dean could manage to lie directly to Sam's face, but not while he was driving. Dean was a pretty good multitasker, but not that good.

"What are you implying?" Guarded. Another sign that he was hiding something.

Sam started cautiously, cautiously because he didn't want to push Dean away from possibly telling him the truth by seeming too eager, "I think he might be your—"

"Fruit of my loins?" Dean scoffed. "No," he said coolly. "He's not."

Sam frowned and his mind worked overtime. Biology, blood testing, genetics…"How do you know? Only way to know for sure is a DNA test—"

"Which Lisa had done when Ben was a baby," Dean interrupted Sam again. "I'm not his dad." His voice was level, calm. Only someone who knew him very well would be able to sense the roiling emotion it tried to hide. Too bad it was Sam he was talking to. Little brother saw everything.

"So you asked." Sam felt a little bad about the interrogation. Because, hey, Dean didn't exactly seem to want to depart with this info, but he really did want to know. It could help him understand his brother better. Sam knew the 'whats' of his brother's personality and mannerisms, but upon examination, he found that he knew very little about the deeper parts of the 'whys' and 'hows.'

After a long breath, Dean answered. "Yeah." It was more of an unsure 'Yeah. I'm not gonna like what you're gonna ask me next, am I?' kind of 'Yeah' than the annoyed 'Yes, I asked, okay?' sort.

Sam asked the dreaded question anyway. "Did you want to be his dad?" He had to know. What would Dean do if he found out he did have a kid out there? Would he quit hunting and be a permanent fixture in the kid's life? Would he touch base every now and then from the road, or would he simply stay out of the kid's life for his safety? These were the sort of things he thought he might know about his brother but could never be sure about. Dean surprised even him sometimes.

Dean squirmed, cornered. "Sam." He didn't want to think of 'what ifs,' especially not this close to the end of his life. One year. A little less than that. Eleven months and a handful of days.

"Did you?" Sam demanded. Dean thought his little brother would have made a damn good lawyer. Too bad he didn't continue in that line of work. "Dean?"

Long eyelashes fluttered down to cover regretful eyes. "Could never have happened anyway," Dean said in a low voice. Then he sniffed and leaned over to turn up the music. "You hungry?" he asked, voice more upbeat and collected than it had been mere seconds ago. "I'm starving. I say we stop at the next town we pass."

Sam gave his brother a long look. "Yeah Dean. Sure." That question would keep for when it really happened. He'd learned some new things about Dean that he could file in his mind for later perusal. Dean felt that he couldn't have kids. He wanted them, but since when did Dean ever get what he wanted, right? Sam couldn't help but feel sad for his brother. Himself, too. What would he do?

He sighed. Some life this was. He'd get Dean out of the deal so he could at least have the option though. He would.


	18. Bitch Jerky

AN: How about that season premiere, huh? Awesome. I missed my SPN over the summer! So glad it's back!!

I uh, honestly didn't know what to write for this one. I've got Chapters 19 and 20 all wrapped up, but this one was a doozy. It was 12:43 AM this lovely Friday morning (it's sometime around 3:30 now, AM of course), and I was sitting there staring at the blank page with the blinky little 'I'-looking thing and wishing I'd kept up with writing a few chapters ahead of my scheduled post date. Guh. So this is the result. It might be a bit…sloppy. And not deep. Erm, what's the opposite of 'deep'? Shallow? Yeah, it's that. I just needed to write _something_.

Set in S3, I think. I started out not knowing, but later on, yeah, definitely S3. Uh, disclaimer: The boys are totally OOC in the beginning. But it's explained later.

**Eighteen: Bitch Jerky**

Sam squinted in the bright sunlight that seemed all the more brighter after stepping out of the cooler, darker building. Or maybe he narrowed his eyes, not squinted. Not much difference there. He hurried to catch up to his brother, who'd stormed out of there in a flurry of badly-suppressed anger.

It took three long strides to get right up behind Dean, close enough to exclaim at the too-familiar back, "Dude. Why are you being such a jerk?"

Dean scoffed, now slowing his pace and suddenly whirling on his heels. Sam stopped himself from colliding with his brother just in time. "Oh I dunno," Dean said sarcastically, "but I think it must be because you're such a damn bitch." He'd had enough. Really.

Sam huffed. "Dean," he warned. Oh yeah, bro? You wanna do this?

Dean growled back. "Sam. Quit it." He was so not gonna talk about it.*

Sam persisted in his poking and prodding. "I want to know what the hell that was in there." He jerked a finger in the direction of the building they had just exited. "You don't do that in the middle of a case. We weren't done questioning them."

"Well we can just come back later," Dean said, shrugging back into his nonchalant I-don't-give-a-shit front like a coat. "It's not like they're going anywhere." He snorted. "They practically _live_ in there. Never go home, never see anyone except for themselves. They'll be there when we come back. No worries there."

Sam pinched his mouth in frustration. His eyebrows met in the middle and his nostrils flared wide like a horse's. Classic Sammy bitch-face. "Dean," he ground out. "That's not the problem. It's the way you acted in there. What the hell was that?"

Dean smiled; not the 'I'm as happy as hell and nothing can take me down' kind of smile, not the fake-as-Pamela-Anderson's-boobs 'I'm so sorry for your loss' smile, not the 'I'm gonna kick your ass and have fun doing it' grin, and not the 'I'm trying to be stoic for Sammy' kind. It was the dangerous 'I am damn pissed, and I'm gonna start swingin' real soon if you keep it up, buddy' kind. It was the smile that was never directed at Sam.

"Oh," Dean said with a phony chuckle, "I thought that was me acting like a jerk. That's what you said, wasn't it?" He pierced Sam with a hard gaze. "I'm a stupid jerk who doesn't know how to do his own job."

Sam huffed again. "Well, looks that way to me now, Dean," he retorted. Oh, he was mad, seeing red now. God, his brother just irritated him so much sometimes. "They sure aren't going to let us back in after your little tantrum. How're we gonna finish up the job now?"

"Tantrum?" Dean exclaimed, disbelieving. "Tantrum? I was just pointing out the obvious. They—"

"They what?" Sam smirked condescendingly. "They were doing their jobs wrong? They should have done something that their regular-world training didn't prepare them for? What? Tell me Dean, what was so damn obvious?"

Dean stood closer to his eight-foot eleven sibling and glared. "You know what was so friggin' obvious? What was obvious," he spit out, "was that you can be a real bitch when you don't get what you want. You know that? A whiny bitch."

Sam towered over his midget brother. "Oh yeah? And what about you? You don't think you bitch just a little bit? 'Everything happens to me,' 'I sold my soul for you,' 'Everybody leaves me,' " he mocked. "Well you're the one doing the leaving this time, you jerk!" He was standing inches away from his brother now, hands fisted in the front of his clothes, warping, almost tearing the material. Angry tears stood in his eyes, ready to fall, but he wasn't going to let them. He was breathing heavily, and it was getting harder to suck air into his chest. God, he was just so _mad_.

Lifting his chin, Dean saw the liquid pooling in the blue-green eyes. Was Sam going to cry? Really? Like a girl. No, like a frickin' huge man-child who didn't understand what the hell was going on outside of his own world, where everything revolved around him. "It's about time," he grated out in a low voice. "You weren't worth it." He smiled at the miniscule flash of hurt that raced through Sam's eyes. Damn, that felt good.

Sam felt a small pang somewhere in the vicinity of his heart, in the midst of all the black churning anger that filled him, as Dean wrenched his clothes out of Sam's tight grip and stepped away. "In fact," the older brother snarled, "I'm leaving your sorry ass right now." And he turned and stalked away with angry, even steps.

Shit. Sam blinked. Shit. Dean was…Dean was mad. And he was leaving. Dean was finally ditching him. No, no. He didn't want Dean to leave. But man, Dean had been _pissed._ Maybe he should give him time to cool off. His stuff was still strewn about the motel room, mingled with Sam's own things. Maybe Sam should go back and just sit there, wait for him to come back. Dean wouldn't leave without picking his stuff up, right?

- - -

The adrenaline rushed through Dean's blood, tingling in his fingertips and speeding up his pulse. God. He was just so pissed. Sam was a frustrating, irritating, _annoying_ little asshole. Damn. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. God. As his heart stopped pounding so hard in his ears, he gradually began to realize, _'Oh my god, I just left Sam. _I left Sam_. What the—I would never do that.'_ His breathing became shaky. _'I left Sam.'_

He shook his head. No. No. He wouldn't do that. No matter how damn _pissed_ he got, he wouldn't do that. Not ever. And why the hell was he so mad? He never got this mad. He—

Dean's eyes widened. Oh. Shit. Oh shit. Ohshitohshitohshit. It was the case. Their case. And he—they—No way was that happening. Not on his watch. He'd fix this. He wasn't sure if he ever could, but he'd damn well try.

Okay, so it was obvious that he and Sam couldn't be near each other or they'd kill each other. Probably couldn't talk to each other either. Phones were out; couldn't risk it. He'd solve the case and hope Sam was still in town then. If not, he'd track him down. But he had to solve the case first.

Tick-tock, time's a-wastin' Dean.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_The wee hours of that night…_

Sam sat on the edge of the bed, miserable. Dean still hadn't come. He couldn't believe it. Dean had really left him. He had wanted to avoid him so badly that he'd left all of his worldly belongings behind and driven off into the horizon. Alone. No one _bitching_ in the passenger seat being a whiny brat.

Maybe he should go to bed. But Dean wasn't coming back anyway, so what was the point? No one to make sure he went to bed. He didn't need to sleep. He wasn't tired. He was damned miserable, but he wasn't tired. He sniffed. And sniffed again. His nose was running. He was about to wipe it on his sleeve, but stopped himself. Bathroom. He'd wash his face.

Sam stood and shuffled over to the tiny bathroom and closed the door. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Miserable. If they ever put 'whiny bitch' in the dictionary, his miserable mug would be next to it. Miserable. He sniffed long and hard. Man, that was a lot of snot.

- - -

Dean hauled himself out of the Impala. He was sore. Too bad; he deserved every bump, scrape, and bruise he'd gotten tonight. Tonight and ever, even the ones in the future that he hadn't gotten yet. He shuddered. Even the hellhound bites. He deserved it for saying those things to his brother. _"You weren't worth it."_ Especially that. What the hell was he thinking?

By this time, he was standing in front of the motel room door, the key in his hand hovering uncertainly in front of the keyhole. What would he find inside? His brother? Or a whole room full of empty nothing. He took a deep breath and shoved the key in.

Once inside, his heart stopped. Lights on, clothes and papers everywhere, but no Sammy. No floppy-haired, long-nosed, mopey green giant brother. He stood there in the doorway, turned to stone.

Light was showing under the closed bathroom door. His heart fluttered in his chest. Sammy? Maybe he was…

He walked over and twisted the rusty door handle. And pushed.

"Oompf." He got a fist in his face for his trouble. He put his hand to his sore jaw. "What the hell?!" The angry expletive flew out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Floppy-haired? Check.

Long-nosed? Check, and slightly red and wet. Wet nose? Huh.

Mopey giant? Double-check.

His brother stood before him, gaping in shock. His hands were still at the ready in a fighting position.

Dean eyed the fists warily. "You gonna slug me again, Sammy?"

"Dean," Sam whispered. "Dean."

"Yeah, that's my name," Dean said cautiously. Looked like the punch was out of the picture now. Good. Sammy had a wicked left hook.

"You jerk," Sammy breathed out and lumbered real close to Dean. Very close. Hug close. "Dean, I thought you left," he sobbed onto Dean's shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Dean patted Sam's back awkwardly. His arm was a bit banged up. It hurt, but he had to take care of Sam first. "It's okay. It was the hunt. It screwed with our minds. It wasn't us. Okay? I'm sorry too."

Sam pulled away. "What? It was the case?" he blubbered. He really had to stop crying. "But—"

"Why aren't we tearing each other's heads off right now?" Dean asked. "Thing's dead. I took care of it. It won't be bothering anyone else anymore."

Sam blinked the water out of his eyes. "So we're good?"

Dean shrugged. "Well, I still think you're a bitch," he smirked, "but you're my brother, and there isn't anywhere I'd rather be than right here." His expression softened into an uncertain smile. _'We good, Sammy?'_

Sam laughed, wet and snot-filled. "Jerk," he replied. _'Yeah, we're good. And ditto. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else either.'_ He took in his brother's dusty, bruised appearance and said, "You need a shower. I'll clean that out for you after." He nodded at the cut slashing across Dean's left cheekbone.

Dean grinned. "Okay, good." He glanced at the unused shower. "Any hot water left for me?"

"No," Sam breezed out of the bathroom, leaving the light on. "I used it all up."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

*Mid-Story AN: 1:08 AM. Sorry about the interruption, but I just thought I'd point out that at this point, even I don't know what Dean doesn't want to talk about. I am just randomly typing whatever comes into my head.

End of story AN: Okay. That was a really vague 'what the heck was that?!' one, wasn't it? But hey, anger, drama. Just fit whatever you want into the blanks I left, like what in the name of Bobby's polka-dotted boxers was the case? Maybe an anger-causing spirit or something? I dunno. Kind of like the Siren episode a bit, isn't it?

Also it's times like this that my Dean-girlness shows through. Smart!Dean and Weepy!Sam. Yeah. Whatevers. The boys hugged, so that's all that matters. :D

And to think, in my original outline, this was just going to be a 'how bitch/jerk originated' story. Either that or 'how many bitch/jerks can I fit into one story?' Or both—they're not mutually exclusive. The first has been done so many times already and I couldn't think of a good one. The second was kind of dumb. But hey, it could still work for this one—

Jerk/Bitch counter: Jerk: 7, Bitch: 8. 'Jerk' is the B-word's bitch. XD

Okay, going to sleep now. Heh.


	19. Sam’s Grossest Question Ever

AN: As my profile page states, I don't read or write Wincest, and as of this posting, I never have written any (hey, I've tried reading it, but it's not my thing), but this was just begging to be written. You can see this chapter as absolutely and totally non-Wincest, as I meant it when I wrote it, or you can see it as pre-Wincest if you so choose (that's you, Toast, right?). Whichever it is, I hope you find it as funny as I think it is.

Takes place after _that_ scene in "The Monster At The End Of This Book." You know, the ultimate SPN meta one.

**Nineteen: Sam's Grossest Question Ever**

Sam had been thumbing for several hours through the books that were basically a very detailed biography of their lives, when he surfaced and had a question for his brother ready on his lips, just like always. "Hey Dean? Theoretical question. If the fans of these _Supernatural_ books knew our real last names, what do you think they'd call us?"

Dean glanced up from his own paperback novel. "Uh, Dean and Sam. The Winchester brothers? Duh." He rolled his eyes. Dumbass question.

Sam shook his hair out of his eyes. "No, I mean the pairing. Like Sam-slash-Dean," he said earnestly, referencing the preferred pairing of apparently hundreds of fans of the _Supernatural_ books.

Dean grimaced. "Again, ew. Gross! That's—that is just wrong. You should not be thinking about stuff like that. That's—that's like, _incest_, man! No, it isn't 'like incest;' it _is_ incest."

Sam beamed at him. Not good, Dean thought. So not good. "That's it!" Sam said with a bright grin.

Dean eyed his excited brother warily. "What?"

Sam uttered his next word as if it was the sacred word of God. "Wincest."

Dean's face contorted into an expression he didn't even know he could make. "Ohmygawdkillmenow." He glanced upwards, addressing a God that he'd started to believe in only this year. "On second thoughts, don't. 'Cause you might just send some dick angels to do it and that would suck worse than the actual dying part. And I might end up in hell again which might kind of increase the amount of suckage; no, never mind the 'might kind of' part. It would _really_ raise the suckage meter, and…"

Sam lifted a brow at his rambling brother. "Dean. Dude."

"I mean, really?" Dean suddenly exploded at him, indignant. "_Wincest_? That the best you can do?"

"Uh yeah," Sam said, now more amused than anything. "You think of a better one then."

Dean's mouth worked as he tried to think of a name to one-up his brother's, then realized—

"Grosssss! You're trying to trick me into thinking of something to call your sick fantasy. Twisted, Sammy. Quit it," he raged, off of the bed now and waving his fists in the air to punctuate his point. "It's nasty, that's what it is. I am not playing along. I've always said that I will try anything, but ass-stick my brother? No way, no how. Ever."

He glared at Sam, daring him to try to seduce him. He'd kick his ass. And then he'd kick the asses of all those fangirls for putting the thought in Sam's ginormo head. And then he'd drink himself into oblivion. In that order. And then he'd kick this Carver Edlund dude's ass for the heck of it. Nosy freak.

"I didn't say I wanted to do it," Sam said thorough his titillation at his crimson-cheeked brother's outburst. "Just wondered, theoretically, what it would be called. That's all. I don't want to actually do any of this stuff." A wicked gleam suddenly flashed in his eyes. "I mean, unless _you_ want to. And by the way, you're usually bottom."

Dean actually looked shocked before bursting out with, "Sammy, gross. I'm going out for a drink. And then, I'm going to pick up a willing _girl_ to have sex with. When I come back, I better not find you jerking off to Sam-slash-Dean fantasies." A blushing Dean stormed off, muttering something like, "People are so twisted."

If it was true that laughing extends your life, Sam would live to be a hundred and forty. He'd forgotten how much fun it was to pull Dean's leg. He let loose another full-bellied laugh before turning to his laptop and searching for _Supernatural_ bromance fanfiction, still chuckling. What? Some of them were actually pretty good. In a…disturbing kind of way.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AN: Hehe, poor Dean. But hey, serves him right for grossing Sam out in Chapter 15. Payback's a bitch. ;D

Spoiler for Season 5 premiere:

So now that Becky knows the boys' last name, will she redub her fave pairing 'Wincest'? That is the question. And lol, that scene was hilarious!


	20. The Man Who Laughed In The Face Of Death

*9/13/2009*

AN: Whee!! *sings* It's my birthday and I'll squee if I want to, squee if I want to, squee if I want to…Okay, is my homage to the song that was playing in the episode "Ghostfacers" (Leslie Gore's "It's My Party") not working?

Whatever. So here's the last installment of my birthday self-challenge fic. I will probably be Jossed by the end of the season. Actually, I think I already have been. Oh well. Enjoy.

I'm 20!

**Twenty: The Man Who Laughed In The Face Of Death**

"_You are talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom and chuckled at catastrophe…I was petrified."_ —The Wizard from "The Wizard of Oz"

Sam stood next to his brother and checked his gun over. Dean was bent over the trunk sorting the weapons he wanted to use in this fight from the things he didn't need.

"Dean?" His voice rasped, dry like the landscape all around them. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Hey."

The sandy head turned. Dean squinted up at his tall brother and grated out, "Yeah, Sam?" The older man sounded as tired as he looked. He looked as weary as he felt. He felt as exhausted as a man who was at the end of his rope would feel. They both were running on fumes. Lucifer had been wreaking havoc for months now and they'd been trying to clean up the mess and stay out of his way at the same time.

Sam had been looking rather the worse for the wear recently, Dean thought as he checked his brother over out of habit. Tired, depressed, bone-weary. Just like he was. In addition, Dean now acknowledged with a sigh, for the past thirty sleep-deprived hours, the younger man had been sporting that pinched look he got when he was thinking too hard. That was never a good thing.

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm his nerves. "You scared?" he asked, eyes staring down at his dusty boots, as worn and stained and beaten down as their wearer.

Needless to say, the question took Dean by surprise. The Winchester men were not prone to talking about feelings a whole lot, and especially not about fear. Still, this battle was something Dean knew they probably wouldn't walk out of alive, or at least unscathed, so he tried to answer as best he could.

"I'd be an idiot if I wasn't, Sammy," he sighed, opting to tell the truth. He turned and sat on the Impala's bumper. Then he smiled and glanced up at Sam. "But then you are always telling me that I am one." The lines fanning out from his eyes crinkled around the eloquent gaze.

Sam swallowed and nodded. Damn, if even Dean was admitting that he was scared, then it meant he thought this was the end. At least it meant Sam wasn't alone in that at least. They were both in it together. He sat down next to his brother, brushing the sleeve of his hoodie up against the leather jacket, and threw the ball back in Dean's corner. "That's because you are for not leaving me when you had the chance," he mumbled to the ground. This mess was all his fault.

Dean shook his head. "No, Sammy, no. Don't you start that again." Sam opened his mouth to argue but got a rough hand held up in his face for his trouble. "Shut up, Sam. You're my brother and as many times as I've threatened to leave your ass, when have I really ever done it?" With one eyebrow raised, he looked a little like the cocky, teenaged brother who used to tell Sam dirty jokes, and a little bit like one of the weary soldiers in old war portraits with the haunted look of battle in their black-and-white eyes and a sad almost-smile. He looked like Dean Winchester, circa 2010, warrior for humanity.

Serious green eyes bore into right side of Sam's face, making him uncomfortable. He tried to cover up the big sniff that wanted to make its way out of his nose. "But that still makes you an idiot for not leaving me when you had the chance," he said flippantly, trusting his little brother status to turn the insult into a tease. "A short, loveable idiot." He quirked a smile at his brother.

Sensing that the serious moment was over between the two of them, Dean bumped his shoulder against Sam's and retorted, "I'm not short. You're just freakishly tall. And I already know that I'm loveable. Women love me." He grinned boastfully at Sam, his eyes creasing up at the corners. Affection shone unchecked from his face.

Before Sam could think of a witty rejoinder, Bobby came out of the broken-down old cabin they'd holed up in last night. "You girls done flirtin'?" he growled amiably. "Good. Get yer asses in gear. We got work to do." He flung his the last of their things into the open trunk.

The boys' eyes met again, after flicking over to the old hunter. With identical grins, they hopped off of the bumper. Dean slammed the trunk shut and fished in his pocket for the keys. "Sammy wouldn't know flirting if it kicked him in the perskeeter," he said cheekily.

Sam's comeback was a silent one as he slipped into the Impala; he flipped a bird at his brother.

Bobby chuckled and sighed, sneaking a long glance at the men the two Winchester boys had become. They were both tall, loveable idjits. And he, Robert Steven Singer, was proud to fight alongside them in this final battle between good and evil.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AN: Wow, last one. This has been a great end-of-summer project. I loved doing it.

Shout-out thanks to: raceh8(lots of other random numbers, lol), Toast_Winchester, hachoo, Mrs_Max_McDowell, lynxzpanther, UpstairsMind, parinumal7, .x, enviousxbeauty, Janakie, TJ_Sparkles, QuierdoMusic, and oh dear, if I named everyone who reviewed, I'd be going on forever. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me this far. Later!


End file.
